Do your kids swim?

For those of us who have kids, do your kids swim? I had this vision of teaching my kids to swim (I was a WSI instructor) and they would be strong swimmers who love the water. It didn't turn out that way! :eek: My kids -- ages 12, 11 and 5 -- do swim competitively. It took me awhile to learn how not to try to coach them and I'm still like an addict who has to remind himself to take it one day at a time. I fall off the wagon sometimes -- like the last meet when my eldest daughter breathed on the 1st stroke off the wall in a 50 free!!! -- but try to keep reminding myself that I'm the parent. Having said that, as I swim longer in Master's and reflect more on my own swimming career, I find myself trying to focus more on ensuring they're having fun and that they're able to balance a sufficiently competitive swim program with their academics, friends & other pursuits. I really want them to enjoy their swimming so it becomes a lifelong pursuit. I do try to help their coaches/team create an environment where the kids can be successful via officiating and sitting on the board of the team. Those are probably much more useful roles for parents. Finally, as others have noted, when I do slip and try to coach my own kids, they -- either in words or actions -- tell me to go back to being a parent.:D

The daughter is approaching 18. We went through rounds of swim lessons and it never really took as a sport. She is competent enough to splash around but probably would struggle to pass the basic scout swim test (75 yards free, 25 of elementary backstroke). The wife (former ballerina and dance instructor) did not have much luck in her field either. The daughter danced up to age six and quit. She does enjoy writing & theater, having written and directed a short play for her high school and regularly writes fan fiction. She may not participate in sports, but is willing to walk and go to the gym. I don't need her to have a bunch of sports medals or to be a principal ballerina to be proud of her.

My son is 9 and swims year-round. I coached USA and Y swimming until we adopted him in 2000. I discovered very early on that he was not going to be receptive to my teaching him. In fact, when he was 2 or 3, I tried to teach him a few things and he screamed bloody murder for 15 minutes. Everybody at the pool was laughing becase I've coached many of their kids. I finally realized he was going to have to be taught by somebody else. It worked great once I realized that. When he started swimming competitively at 8, it was a little hard for me to not want to coach him if I saw him doing something wrong in practice. For awhile, I just had to bring him in to practice and leave so I would not be tempted to say something. Now, I just keep my mouth shut and defer to the coach. It seems to be working wonders. I do coach his summer team, but I try to put him in a group where I am not the one coaching him. Your kids are still young enough where they may develop a love for swimming. Putting them with another instructor that is firm but kind can work magic.

It was my daughter who brought me back to swimming. She swam for the Y for a year and then followed her coach to another team, which happened to have a small masters program. Another swimmer/parent convinced me to join, and two years later, here I am. I litterally thought I was going to die for the first three months, it had been 20 years out of the water, but I survived. There are practices when we swim in the same lane but most often we see each other when practice is over. I learned to have her point out things I should work on etc. so she can be a bit of an expert. So far, it's pretty cool to have mom there, but then, she has no choice!

I have three kids - 14 (girl), 16, and 18 yrs. old. At one point in time, all three swam for a USA team. That only lasted one year. But we live on a lake. Our kids all took swim lessons, then they joined a summer league team without complaining. The summer league team was simply a way to get a bunch of repetition in one summer instead of going for multiple rounds of swim lessons. We wanted the kids to be lake-drown-proof. With almost no pressure from me - they decided they wanted to continue swimming and switched to a USA-S year round program. The daughter didn't stay with USA swimming. She switched to gymnastics and competed in US gymnastics through level 7, then quit because the next step was a big step neither she nor we (parents) were ready to take. So she is now an intermediate diver and dives for the high school team that her brother swims on. My oldest swims for a non-ranked Div 1 college. The other son is a very solid USA and high school swimmer. My kids unfortunately are not tall, nor have big hands and feet. My 18 yr old at 5-9 is the shortest guy on his team. But he swims a 1:55 200 IM and a 58 100 ***. My 16 yr. old is 5-7 and is a very solid middle distance IMer and freestyler. We video tape lots of their races and we look at them together but I do not coach them. I observe - and they want to know what I saw. I love it.

My daughter has loved the water since her first bath. She swam on a summer league this year, loved it, and is now practicing with the winter team. So far, she likes it. It's fun for me because for now we have a shared interest. She would not learn well from me, but once in a while will ask me to show her how to do a drill she's not getting or ask me what I think of a stroke or if we can go to the pool together to work on something she's having problems with. I figure my role in her swimming is to be supportive of her efforts. My only requirements are that (1) she pays attention to the coach - she's 8 - and (2) that she gives it her best effort.

I don't need her to have a bunch of sports medals or to be a principal ballerina to be proud of her. Just to be clear - although my kids all do sports - some quite seriously - I was far more proud of my son's ACADEMIC scholarship than his two high school 2nd place state championship races. What makes me most proud from a swimming perspective of my two swimmers is that their achievement is driven most of all by their own effort and dedication.

Almost no kid wants their parent to teach or coach them. I never tried. All 3 of my kids are competent in the water, which was my only goal. I have a former USA swimmer/tri who just runs now, a USA swimmer who swims a fair amount, and a little summer leaguer. I don't care what sport my kids do. It just can't be at 4:30 am every day. Keep plugging away with the lessons, Mary. Act nonchalant; don't hover or push. It's a life skill they need to learn. They'll eventually come around. Bribes/rewards are good too.

my 6 month old is in baby swim, and my 3 yr old is in her 3rd semester of "mini-swim". they are learning to go underwater, kick, push off the wall, jump, dive and canon balls. they are also getting into diving under from the surface to pick up toys. not really swimming yet, but she really likes it. we are hoping that she'll just continue with swim school, and they right into the team when she is around 7-8 yrs old.

Currently have a 10yo daughter who loves swimming. She loved the water at a very early age, absolutely no fear to the point of giving us heart failure as she would just run right into the pool at age 2. Then something happened at about age 5 where she wanted nothing to do with the water, no trauma that we can come up with to explain it. That ended at age 7 when she joined the local Y team and swam with them for a year and then joined the summer league. The Y folded and she's now in her 2nd season with a year round club and loving it. Altho she did move up to a higher program that now involves 30 minutes of dry land a week and 3-4 1.5 hour practices, so she's been dragging a bit. I try (note: TRY, it's been very difficult) to not 'coach' her, I'm 95% effective.